So now Cooper was in Mason and doing all he could to “behave.” That meant not getting involved with any human. He was quite annoyed about the little trailer he’d been told was where he was to live and he planned to fix that as soon as possible. But with an empty bank account and no assets, new housing wouldn’t be easy.

Card in hand, he was looking through the drawer marked H but he didn’t see “Hatten.”

He opened the drawer labeled B. A header read Blue. Subfiles were Robin’s-egg Blue, Midnight Blue, Sky Blue, Peacock Blue. There were labels for twelve hues.

Puzzled, he pulled out a card under Gray-blue. It was for a wolfhound named Rab and listed the shots the dog had had. Flipping through the cards, he saw that horses, turtles and goldfish were categorized by color, all seeming to be a shade of blue.

He opened other drawers. Red, Green, Purple. There were four drawers for Brown, two for Black. “What the hell?” he muttered.

The front door opened and in came Betty. He had no idea why she’d left the office in the middle of the day. She was in her fifties, with iron-gray hair and a shapeless body. She had an air of confidence about her that seemed almost regal. He’d already learned that she believed she was in charge.

“What have you done?” Coop didn’t yell. He was calm as he held up the card.

“I organized the system properly.” She sounded as though he was stupid for not seeing that.

His teeth were clamped together. “By color?”

“Yes, then name. If the dog is black and named Schooner, you can find it right away.”

Coop swallowed. “The owners’ names. Where are they?”

Betty gave him a look of disbelief. “This is a hospital for animals. Not people! Animals come first. Didn’t you learn that in vet school?”

He felt his temper flaring. “I learned that turtles are not blue!”

“Hmph!” she said. “You should have told Kelly that you’re color-blind.”

“I am not color-blind!” he shouted. “I am a licensed veterinarian and I need to be able to find information quickly.”

Betty looked at something to the side, then backed up to the wall, her eyes wide. “Does Kelly know you’re a violent man?” she said in fear. “Please don’t hit me.”

“I’ve never hit a woman in my life!” He took a breath to calm himself. “You took over all my exam tables because you said you were reorganizing the files. I let you do it because I thought you knew what you were doing.” He was having to work to not shout at her. “This is going to take me days to fix. I ought to—”